So Giants Shall Ne'er Tread
by ISA-Sniper
Summary: In the darkest night, it can be hard to see the stars still shining. Captain Travis Drouin has just graduated from the N7 program and had been looking forward to leave on Earth when the Reapers struck. He has found himself placed in command of a team of some of the most elite soldiers of the Systems Alliance. He can't just survive - he has to fight back.


**Prologue  
**_The Man in the Arena_

.

* * *

.

_It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better._

_The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and blood and sweat, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause._

_Who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat._

.

.

* * *

.

.

**Captain Travis Drouin  
****3rd Infantry Division, Romeo Company  
****London, Earth**

**Seven hours before the final push . . .**

I couldn't think.

I couldn't see.

I couldn't walk.

It seemed like the list of things robbed from me was infinite. The Reapers had been thorough when they tried to cripple me, yet they had made on crucial mistake.

I could still _breath_.

Smoke choked the air around me, as fires burned, and I could hear the sounds of gunfire and battle as those few men under my command fought so valiantly to hold off the seemingly endless waves of bodies that had come crashing down upon us. Even in my dazed and pained state, I knew that they only had so much ammo, and so much time before this all came to a brutal end.

Knocked to the ground when the Mako beneath my feat had exploded, I found myself face-down in a pile of concrete debris and soot. My left leg felt as if a million fire ants had descended on me, yet some part of my mind registered the peculiarity in the fact that I couldn't feel my right leg at all - and I didn't even need to see for that same part of my brain to determine why. Even through the pain ringing around in my skull, that training that the Alliance had been so proud of was taking hold of me, but I could feel the slow creep of circulatory shock from the blood loss. I gave myself one minute, two on the outside, before my body quit, and my mind slowly shut down. That was barring a painful death at the hands of the flesh army that was crashing against the ragged remains of our perimeter. I knew that, most hopeful estimate, that only four or five of us were still alive, and it wasn't too pessimistic to think that a half of that number were in the same sort of condition that I was in as I tried to prop my upper half up on my arms to look around. Most of my view of the immediate battlefield had been blocked by debris, the burning remains of the Mako, and the thick blanket of smoke and fire that surrounded us. I could see the dead bodies of the initial delivery team, some buried under recently piled rubble, and others lying out in the open for all who cared to see. I couldn't give up, I realized. Not just for me, or the nine other men who had come under my command, but for _them_. They had embarked on what they were sure was a suicide mission, hoping it would work. I couldn't let them down.

With the Reaper looming nearby, ground shaking with each of the behemoth's steps, I willed my body to move. I couldn't walk, I couldn't even _crawl_. Slowly, I dragged myself across the ground. As I moved, that pain in my leg intensified, rising from the painful sting to a roaring burn so bad that I almost wanted to throw up, but some part of my mind kept compelling me to move. Every bone had been broken in a thousand ways, every muscle pulled in a million more, and my body screamed at me to quit while my mind screamed for me to keep going. As the Reaper drew closer still, its thunderous walk began to add to the orchestra of pain through my body, advancing unimpeded as I pulled myself across the ground. In my ear, I could hear the few survivors still trying desperately to coordinate with one another to keep up the defense. Every part of my body was starting to scream at me to stop, to lay down, and just _die_. Yet another part of my brain was yelling at me to keep pulling myself along.

It was slow and it was painful. _God_ was it painful.

Every inch felt like a mile, dragging on endlessly.

Spots began to form at the edges of my vision.

"No." I barely even realized I was talking, "Not - yet. Not - right now." I dragged myself further, "Not - like this."

It was only another two miles, I thought.

That had always been what my drill sergeant at boot camp had always yelled.

'_Just another two miles, son! Don't matter where to! Just another two miles!'_

Somehow the thought wasn't comforting in any way, but I still drove on. If nothing else, the idea of failing brave men like that was what kept me going, if not my past experiences with them. Somewhere deep inside, I found a little reserve of energy that I hadn't known existed, and found those spots in my vision fading away with each passing moment. They wouldn't stay away for long, but maybe they would stay away long enough to -

- then I was there.

I shot one hand up triumphantly, smacking it hard against the cold metal shell shining in the glow of the nearest fires. Blood, my blood, smeared across the surface as my first grip for a hand-hold failed, and the second attempt stained one of the bars atop the shell meant for just such a purpose. Once again, the muscles in my body were screaming at me to stop as I began to pull my whole body weight atop the metal shell, smearing it with yet more of my blood, but my will to move on was stronger than any of the pain hitting me now - as cheap as that might have sounded. Using it to support myself, I managed to get a weak footing under myself with my pained leg, relieving the strain on my arms, and it was then when something mangled and bloody resting on the ground nearby caught my eyes. It was mangled and gruesome, flames licking at the softer under-materials of the hard-suit. Even through all of that, I still managed to recognize what it was that I saw. Not that it dissuaded me very much.

"Oh." I breathed, "There's my damn leg."

By now, the Reaper was just nearly passing over us.

Supporting myself as best I could, I looked for the switch . . .

.

* * *

.

**Author's Notes:** So this is the start of my first ever Mass Effect story. It is going to follow some recently graduated N7 Marines who are fighting the good fight back on Earth while the infamous Commander goes about saving the day elsewhere. Expect to meet famous faces, such as Admiral Anderson, and other notable characters from the Mass Effect Universe. Apologies for the Prologue being so short, but Chapter 1 should compensate well enough.

_**Disclaimer:**_ Mass Effect, its universe, characters, and any trademarks thereof are not my property, and I make no claim to them. Nor am I doing this in an attempt to gain profit.


End file.
